“Where are you, my pretty? Come on, come on. Show yourself,” he muttered to himself, the first sign of madness, and maybe the second of a broken heart. He tirelessly scanned the whole seven planets of the Agri Hub system. “Gone back to Steeler, perhaps? Is that where your heart lies? Negative. Right, where next?”
Kris next scanned the entire system, desperate to find her. “No , wait a minute. Gala 6? Of course, Brody told me, new des res of Grey Ventura. Get ready, Gala 6, I’m coming and I’m very, very pissed off.”
Chapter Fourteen
Into The Past…
Kris’s mood was as black as The Scarab itself which ate up the Agri Hub system on its fast route to Gala 6. Kris checked his weaponry. Going to a planet inhabited by Ratt pirates was no picnic. Onto his belt he snapped cuffs, reader and knives. A pistol slotted firmly into his black leather holster. From a peg where more weapons hung, he pulled out a barbed whip, something which always made him shiver and touch his scarred side. No food was necessary. He didn’t intend to stay there long.
Readying himself did not take as long as Kris had hoped. When there was nothing left to fill his mind with, he began to think about her. Fern. The betrayer. Had she really been so malicious as to call in a bounty knowing the perpetrator was really herself? Kris decided she must be the best liar in the universe. He had even believed all her stories about loving tradition and feeling the land. His whole world had been shaken. Edenvale was such a place of beauty—how could it be home to one so ungrateful or unable to see just what she had there. An amazing playground which fed, clothed, watered and kept her. One she could have shared with him.
For a moment, Kris had to sit on his bunk and collect his thoughts. Rubbing his temples, a choking greyness blinded him. He was not sure which loss he felt the most. Her? Being able to smile again and then losing the power? Believing in people again and in the beauty of the planets only to end up hating them all even more fiercely than before? With a shake of his head, he knew it was impossible to try and rank them. Each one had become dear to him. He had done wrong—letting someone back in. In his experience, it always led to sorrow and disappointment. Fern was no different than any other. Even the thought of her and how she used to make him feel was enough to cause a puddle of nausea in his stomach. No, it was strictly robonurses for Kris from now on.
When The Scarab approached Gala 6, Kris scrambled into the control area up front. He took the vehicle off auto pilot and found a quiet landing area behind a large glacier where his vehicle slid eventually to a halt.
As Kris killed the engine, the image of Hudson Brody entered his mind. Weirdly, Kris was glad of this vision overtaking that of Fern which had barely left his mind since he had first landed on Dania. Brody’s face began to talk and reminded him of the warning he had left him with.
Kris, you must promise me that you will use discretion. I understand your need for revenge. Just don’t let your past turn your present into something you don’t deserve to be. Don’t become a killer.
Kris repeated the part that worried him most, “Don’t become a killer. Might have been easier if I hadn’t just found out the love of my life has been scheming with the Ratts. Pirates, I hate them.”
Kris pulled on his cold weather gear—fur wrap rounds for his boots, huge coat and hood, gloves, very like those of the pirates. To be certain he would not be discovered, he thought-activated a holographic costume to cloak himself as a pirate, according to the latest data in the Star Fighters base. What he saw in the mirror repulsed him—a dirty thing with long, matted hair, green teeth and scars in various states of disrepair.
“Brilliant,” Kris moaned, back to his sarcastic, lonely self. “I lose the girl and become this. Fantastic.” He leapt from The Scarab and practised walking with a swagger come lollop, just as well since a group of pirates were around the corner, headed towards their own ship. They turned and eyed Kris with suspicion but Kris growled at them and headed towards the main entrance, directed by furtive glances at his reader.
Once inside the ice cave, heading down towards the hub of all the action, Kris cursed as his holographic outfit ceased to function due to the thickness of the cave walls. Exposed as a bounty hunter, two nearby pirates turned on him, swords drawn. Quick as a flash, Kris drew his weapon and shot them both with two quick orange blasts. Brody’s image had affected his conscience and Kris actually felt glad that he had chosen last minute to set his pistol to stun. That gave him about half an hour to grab his bounty and get out of there.
Kris dodged behind a pillar of icy rock as more pirates approached. Luckily they turned a corner which gave him chance to check his reader again. He needed to go in their direction. Fern and Ventura were near. His guts churned like a carton of milk someone had just squeezed lemon into. Part of him was pumping full of adrenaline and excitement to catch the bounty and take it back to HQ, another mission successfully completed. However, the larger part was killing him. The part that worshipped Fern and could not believe that such an innocent, kind beauty was a villain deep down. Nevertheless, all his training was kicking in, despite his personal judgement and pain. Fern was the bounty. He was there to take her in. He would do it as professionally as possible.
On his way there, Kris noticed a large white room carved into the rock which was filled to the brim with succulent plants and from where he heard the odd farmyard noise. A little further down the passage, the reader told Kris his bounty was inside the next room. He caught hold of his cuffs in readiness. With one swift, fierce kick, he knocked down the door.
What a sad sight met his eyes. Fern was lying on a bed, looking dishevelled and her lip had been bleeding. She was not moving. Kris’s guts fell down to his core. How could he ever have doubted her?
Looking surprised in the corner of the room was the silver haired, blank-eyed, massive frame of the wicked Grey Ventura. In his hand, he was flicking the end of a syringe. He spun around like a panther, his empty eyes boring into Kris’s cool countenance. Ventura could not defend himself as Kris’s pistol was trained upon him immediately.
“You have a death wish, friend!” Ventura roared so deeply that Fern began to stir.
“What have you done to her?” Kris growled.
“Not as much as I would have liked,” the pirate replied.
“I remember you.” Kris eyed the pirate keenly. From his deepest, most painful memories, he remembered the silver shade of grey. He remembered a cruel man with blanched, empty eyes. Even the timbre of his gravelled voice triggered a memory. Right before him, he was almost certain, stood the man who had murdered his parents. The one who had scarred him and not just his body. Kris pulled up his tee-shirt and revealed his muscular stomach with the scar that curled tightly around him, ready to cut him in two. “Do you remember me?”
Ventura squinted and mocked the hunter, “Should I?”
“Fifteen years ago, you attacked a passenger ship and killed everyone aboard.”
A glimmer of recognition flickered across the black sheen of his pupils, “Except one small boy.”
“Yes. Me. You killed my parents.”
“And gave you such a lovely scar. Something to remember me by. A lesson for your cheek. Well, boy, I’m surprised you are still alive.”
“Don’t worry for me. Worry about yourself.” Kris unsheathed his sword.
Their argument woke Fern sufficiently for her to cry, “Stop!”
“Are you alright?” Kris asked, never taking his gaze from the pirate.
“Yes, but you mustn’t kill him.”
“Believe me, Fern, I must.”
“No, Kris. My father is dying. This pirate is the only one who has the serum to save him.”
“Tell me more,” Kris demanded. He had a hard decision to make. “Quickly!”
“It’s my father. All along. He’s been buying robotic plants and stock to help Edenvale. But they double crossed him. They implanted something terrible into his body. He needs a serum to keep him alive. Oh, Kris, last time I saw him, he looked d
readful. Please, get the serum and do what you like. Just get that serum.”
As Fern drooped back upon the bed, Kris shook his head. Could he give up this opportunity? The one thing that had driven him since childhood? His breathing was shallow. His chest burned with desire for revenge. His fingers twitched. He longed to kill.
Don’t become a killer, Brody’s voice merged with that of Fern.
“Don’t become a killer,” Fern urged. “He’s not your bounty. My father is.”
“Today you can be lucky,” Kris told Ventura with distaste. “You can choose to live. Give me the serum. Your other choice is death, right here and now, hiding away on this forsaken planet like the vermin you and all your kind are.”
“What a way with words you have,” Ventura grimaced. “Here.”
Kris caught a capped syringe filled with a clear liquid full of silver flakes, a metallic snowstorm.
“We will meet again, you and I,” Kris promised Ventura before shooting him . “He’s only stunned. Come on, we don’t have much time.”
Kris carried Fern draped in his arms, with his pistol under the crease of her knees, blasting any pirates as soon as they came into view. Even with the added weight of the semi-conscious Fern, Kris was a crack shot and they were soon safely back inside The Scarab. A couple of pirates remained outside the ship shooting lasers and arrows at them. The Scarab’s defence shield sprang into action as soon as it sensed attack and started its engines, ready to flee.
Laying Fern on the bottom bunk, Kris gathered a grenade launcher and filled his pack with explosives. He had been deeply disturbed by the robotic venture inside the cave and could not see any good coming from something so powerful if it was controlled by pirates. There was no way Kris could leave the planet with that kind of industry still intact. After all, he was nothing but a simple farmer at heart.
He leapt from The Scarab and stunned the two pirates outside. Quick as he could, he sprinted back to the cave, shooting down any pirates who came to see what the disturbance was all about. With his footsteps resounding on the ice cave walls, Kris fought his way to the main room. Hoisting his launcher upon his shoulder, he loaded it with large grenades, dropped to one knee and began to fire.
The first blast was the greatest shock to the pirates and scientists who ran for cover, shielding their heads and faces from flying debris and jumping for safety. The next blasts ripped apart all their careful work of the past years. Plants shrivelled, flowers spiralled to the floor like elegant umbrellas and fruit exploded over walls. Kris dropped his launcher once he had spent his grenades, quite aware that Jones would try and bill him once back at HQ, and ran back to The Scarab, dodging the rogue shots of the few who could keep up with his pace.
“Kris?” asked Fern, dazed.
“I’m here. Don’t worry,” he replied as The Scarab lifted her feet and fired her thrusters, taking them out of the cold, cruel, forbidding Gala 6 atmosphere.
Chapter Fifteen
…And Out Again
“How long have I been out?” Fern woke with a start, still full of fear that she was in the pirate ship. However, the familiar scent of The Scarab soon reassured her she was safe and the faint buzz of white noise was strangely calming.
Kris turned round from the cock pit seat. He was more handsome than she remembered. “About four hours. Not so long.” He entered the rear of the vehicle and dragged over a stool. Kris looked deeply into her ever-brightening eyes.
“Ouch, my lip.”
“You took a bit of a knock before I got there. Can you remember what happened?”
“Unfortunately. Everything. Are we nearly back to Dania? I must get this serum to my father as soon as possible.”
“We’re about two hours away.” Kris’s manner was calm.
“You did get the serum, didn’t you?” She sat up in a panic.
“Of course.”
“I can’t imagine anyone worse to have all that technology. They haven’t perfected it yet, but they’re selling it to anyone with a handful of currency. If that goes on,” Fern shook her head, “the whole agriculture of the universe might be ruined.”
“Don’t worry.”
“How can you say that?”
“I blew it up,” Kris told her with pride.
“You blew it up? How well?”
“There’s nothing remaining. Not even a scientist to continue their work.”
“Really?” Fern’s heart lifted. Kris was her absolute hero. “You know what?”
“What?” Kris asked.
Fern licked her orange lips and gave him a knowing smile. “We’ve got two hours to kill. How about I show you how very, very, very thankful I am?”
“First of all,” Kris looked away, “I should tell you something.”
“What?”
“I came to Gala 6 thinking you were my bounty. I was ready to cuff you and take you in.”
“Oh,” Fern was disappointed yet also relieved. “I thought you were going to tell me you weren’t interested in me anymore or that someone back home had died. Why did you think that I was your bounty?”
“When I scanned the forest, I saw that you got into the pirate ship. I made a terrible mistake. I’m sorry.”
“As long as you know that,” Fern grinned, “we’re probably about even. You saved my life, Kris. Even before that, you put happiness into my life that I could only dream about before. You know me now.”
“And myself, more than ever, and I’ve got you to thank for that.”
“Even?”
Kris agreed. “Even.”
Slowly and tenderly, they kissed. There was none of the intense rushing or haste of their original coming together. Everything now had a new intensity. A slow, pulsating, lingering, loving sparkle set alight every kiss or touch or brushing together. In their kisses, it was obvious neither was about to stop there. Fern took off the maroon tee-shirt which Kris had put her to bed in and smoothed her breasts where the orange freckles had begun to glow with a deep, resounding orange.
Fern covered herself in the grey sheets of Kris’s bed as the air conditioning was cold to her naked skin. Kris quickly undressed and slid in on top of her. They laced their fingers together tightly. Kris’s mouth opened in a slow sigh
She felt his pubic hair rustle against her baldness, a strange but erotic feeling for her which thrilled. A hot, hard penis worked its way between her legs. Fern unlaced her fingers from his to lift up her thighs which she pulled back to reveal her mottled, small ring shaped vagina, glowing hot and ready. Kris knelt to behold the spread-eagled Steeler. Fern groaned in ecstasy, glimmering like a shining star. When she felt herself getting close to orgasm, Fern pulled Kris into her and watched his eyes close and teeth clench in deep arousal. She ledged the back of her knees over his shoulders and spread her buttocks wide to enable his deepest penetration.
Kris spread himself out as if ready to perform sit-ups and bore down on Fern, his well lubricated penis pounding into her welcoming warmth. Everything was so quiet around them—the darkness of space, the white noise of The Scarab’s flight. As before, the sex between them was intense to the point of unbearable delight.
Fern lifted her buttocks and worked out of him the most delightful orgasm, this time managing to control the sucking motion of her vagina, slow at first to a wrenching pull like a firm hand until Kris detonated inside her like dynamite.
For a beautiful while, they lay in one another’s arms, perfectly content.
Chapter Sixteen
Collecting the Bounty
“Well, we’re here,” Kris said quietly as The Scarab landed in Edenvale.
“Good. Time to give my father the serum.”
“You know what I have to do afterwards.”
“Yes,” Fern’s gaze fell. “I know. But for now I can’t see past giving him this serum. After that, he’s yours.”
Back at the homestead, Kris administered the serum into Birch’s arm as he lay delirious in bed, his face a dark metal grey. They waited for somethi
ng to happen. Nothing did.
“What’s happening?” Fern asked. “I can’t understand it. He said this serum would help.”
“Pirates, never trust them,” Kris coldly declared. “His only chance now is back at Star Fighters HQ. Maybe The Doc can help him.”
Chapter Seventeen
Back At Headquarters
Back at Star Fighters HQ, Fern and Kris stood hopelessly at the side of Birch as The Doc busied himself around them, at times sighing, at times singing quietly to himself. Although he was simply a hologram, the Doc took a real pleasure from helping, and from knowing more than others. He stepped back and snapped off his rubber surgical gloves.
“Well, doc?” Kris whispered, his arm around Fern.
“He’s going to be fine.”
“Thank God,” Fern sighed.
“I’ve given him two transfusions already so no more for today. I’ll do the same tomorrow, maybe the next day. There are still a few robotic particles inside him. Some are clinging on for dear life, I’ve had to blast them off with lasers. Even so, the prognosis is good.”
“Thank you, doc.” Kris shook his hand.
“Yes, thank you.” Fern smiled. Once the doc had left them alone, she asked, “Will I ever see him again?”
“Yes, of course,” Kris assured her, “although next time will probably be at the trial.”
“I’m not looking forward to standing witness against my own father. And me the one who instigated this bounty.”
“You had no choice.” Kris held her tight. “Justice must be done.”
“Thank you, Kris, for all you’ve done. I mean it. You’ve changed my life. So,” Fern looked around her, at Birch resting on the bed, at the surgical tools, at the clinical white walls. “Where do we go from here?”
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